Colder than Science
by YellowTangerines
Summary: A doomed timeline and a bad route are the same thing. The Beta kids learned that firsthand. Homestuck crossover with Kagerou Project, no Sburb, no trolls. Spoilers for Kagerou Project! /Story 6 of Mekakustuck/
1. Crossroads

**Colder than Science**

Sometimes, it was good to be normal.

With each step John took, following friends through a heat-baked amusement park, he began feeling like a kid again. Ideals of monsters and swallowed hearts had taken a backseat in his mind, being replaced with things like ferris wheels and roller coasters. They were here for an outing, not a mission, like normal people did. And when the breeze broke against John's face? On a mission, he would need to pull up his hood and sulk again. Sneak through the alleyways, slip through the woven metal fences. If people thought the Mekakushi Dan never loosened up, John wouldn't be surprised.

That said, this trip didn't completely fit the confines of 'normal'. Konoha said he wasn't feeling well, and broke off from the group. Weird. Why would a superhuman android, one who could cross ten rooftops in a single leap, not feel well? John took a sniff. There was even a barbeque stand here. Warm oiled meat and green peppers laid there, glistening in the sunlight and staining wooden skewers yellow. John's own mouth filled with water. He didn't even like barbeque all that much. What a shame. Either way, the trickster kept walking down the cobblestone, chasing after his cluster of friends after they called him to hurry. One of those pirate ship rides was waiting! Who could pass one of those up?

Hibiya could. John bumped straight into the clairvoyant after he stopped smack-dab in the middle of the crossroads. "Hey, what gives?" John scowled.

"Don't act so annoyed so quickly! Didn't you see that blur back there?" Hibiya pointed. "From behind the bushes, really quick, as tall as Konoha?"

"Come on. You are just seeing things!"

"No, I'm serious, John! I'm the one with the Focusing Eyes, remember?" the brunette retorted. "I wouldn't joke about this. I'm absolutely certain I saw Konoha! Who else could it be? That height, that fast?" Hibiya pointed a finger at his right eye, just to drive the point in more. John wasn't any more convinced, but looked around anyways. Blue eyes scanned the amusement park, shifting left and right for any sign of a white android – what was Hibiya talking about? There wasn't any…wait.

A blur passed by the pirate ship ride, growing ever closer, looking just like Konoha. Did Konoha get a change of clothes before coming here? He looked different. No, for sure he looked different. John saw it, not just in the darker colour palette, but by the look in his eye. And what was that in his hand? Was that…a pistol? Or a knife? It was less than a meter from John's person. He gulped.

"I'm sorry to have kept you waiting, my queen. Well, shall we begin the next phase of this tragedy?" He sounded different too. More venomous. What was this?

Bam! The sound of a gunshot. John took a look at each of his friends, fellow Beta kids still standing, Mekakushi Dan…Not all of them. Kano. The deceiver laid there, slumped over in a pool of blood that grew. Could he survive that? Thoughts slipped and snaked in the trickster's mind. He heard Kido mutter something under her breath. What was it? She was switching between Japanese and English. Louder. What was it? _Scatter,_ she was saying. _Scatter!_

"Everyone, scatter! Get in groups of two and run! Dave, follow Jade, John, follow Rose!"

He did. John didn't know the last time he had ever followed someone's orders so quickly.


	2. Oblivion, part 1

How long had they been running for? There was no sight of Konoha on their trail, or anywhere in the surroundings, but John didn't know if he could be sure of that. Breaths were pounding against his throat and stomach, clawing for life, sinking the world into delirium. And even when it let him run, his thoughts would just do the exact same thing. Pulling, grabbing, tearing. John only kept running. There was no other choice.

When Rose finally loosened her deathgrip on the trickster's wrist, he saw that their run led to someplace indoors. Somewhere dark, badly lighted, reeking of Halloween and Japanese ghost stories. A haunted house. And, by the metal ladders and coiling wires from the ceiling panels, under renovation. Once he would have loved to set something like this up for Halloween. Maybe back home. God, if only this was Nanna's house, and she was pulling another one of her pranks. Tremors jumped against John's skin, trying to get out. He forced them still.

"John, are you okay?" Rose's voice. At least Rose was herself, right? Maybe. No longer did the trickster know if he preferred this, or the aching blindfolded hours back in the feeling jam room. "John!" she yelled. "John, please don't start projecting."

"I'm not doing that, Rose. I'm not using my ability now," he answered. "I am just really scared. I thought we were just going to the amusement park today, to be normal kids for once!" The tremors ached more. They were positively leaping out of his limbs, his entire body.

"Me too, John. But right now, we have to act. Can you find something in here you could use as a weapon, in case Konoha – whatever Konoha is now – comes in? It's a renovation site. There's bound to be tools in here."

"I don't think he is really Konoha anymore. He's all black! And Konoha is usually tired and hungry and… _nice_. What name should we use now? Okay, okay, I'll look for something weapon-like now." John crouched to the floor, watching the metal ladders and the corners for leftover tools, following Rose.

"Name? Perhaps…the Japanese word for black is _kuro_. You've seen well that our assailant hails from Japan, and is clad in dark hues." Rose responded.

"Kuroha?"

"I approve of it," she said, and resumed looking.

The trickster and psychoanalyst looked over toolboxes and closets, coming up with a steel hammer for John, wooden needlewands and thick yarn (from a fake witch) for Rose. A messy trail full of spilled boxes and swinging doors laid behind them, but neither kid found it important. What was important were the makeshift weapons in their hands, letting John shatter glass and Rose tear dummy robes in one motion. They moved forwards, eyes set instead on finding the exit.

A dead end. This hallway led nowhere, nowhere but Kuroha waiting for them. Rusted iron wafted in the air. And that katana in Kuroha's hand…only Dave could have gotten ahold of something like that. Was Dave dead now, too?

"No! Stop it!" screamed a shrill voice. Marry's voice. John and Rose gripped their weapons, staring Kuroha in the yellow eyes, watching the killer be reduced to a blur –

A katana jutted through John's chest, withdrawing as soon as it came, and mixed blood with liquid pain.

This was not how it should have been.


	3. Oblivion, part 2

It was the news article all over again, Rose felt. The death of a beloved trickster, showing itself before her eyes, all done before she could have had any hand in preventing it. All that talk back in her old journal about repairing fates, and this happens regardless? Wind the yarn around the needles, but feel instead of knit. Stance ready. Grip harder. More pain than tears. More venom than pain.

More grief than venom.

"Ah, but what are you trying to do? Struggle and jump at me, foreigner, you'll only perpetrate this tragedy even more," Kuroha sneered. Rose's anger flared harder in her soul, clawing at the last unravaged, unswallowed piece of heart she had left.

"My name," she roared, "is Rose Lalonde!" Clutching her weapon by the strings, Rose shot a needle at her target. He dodged, he _dodged_ , the filthy snake, but Rose pulled ever more. She jerked the strings in her direction, whirling the wooden wand back where she could grab. After taking hold of it for a second, the needles – both of them this time – darted at the black android. Kuroha's movements stilled a bit, letting a little scratch form on his cheek. In a different place, Rose would have smirked at this. But now? She only raged. He was letting himself get hit, it was all just a game. Rose knew it well. Disgust.

The way the strife flowed, at the end of a haunted house's hallway, felt almost like a dance. A dance at the edge of oblivion, whatever the cost. Quaint. Marry, crumpled over in the corner, couldn't stand to watch. _But I'll save us_ , Rose mouthed.

 _No_ , came the response, silent as the call that prompted it, _no it wouldn't be fine._ _You don't understand, you can't win,_ "I'm sorry." A little whimper, soft and helpless.

What did Marry mean by 'I'm sorry'? Rose stopped mid-jump. She looked to her side, to the other side. She saw that Kuroha had quit playing her game. The android dropped his arm, standing casually while Rose was still in fighting stance. Well? This was a chance for her! His guard was completely down! Rose lunged once more at her assailant, seeing only the knife flying straight for her chest when it was too late. No, not knife. _Knives_. There were three. Rose fell to the floor.

This was not how it should have been.


	4. Checkmate, part 1

_Moments in the past/But not many_

Hand, hand. Foot, foot. Jade scrambled harder up the frame of the roller coaster, Dave doing the same. Her mind turned at light speed, aching for rifles or the coolkid's flashstepping, anything that would keep them safe from who was down there. Jade climbed harder, faster, switching sights from the photo hut above and the horizon below. What was that shape down there? Was something up there? Nothing, nothing, it was all a trick of the light. Jade begged herself to stay focused. How could anything get done when fear was eating away at the mind? Jade begged again. She needed to be focused. Her pleas went unanswered.

But the photo hut at the top of the coaster arrived. The paranoia cleared if only for a moment, as Jade made a last scramble onto the rooftop. Her fingers itched at her sides, behind her back. If only rifles were legal in Japan. Didn't matter if everything was still calm up here – without some weapon, any weapon, going out felt as wrong as not putting on boots in the winter. Made people vulnerable for one thing, but for another, it was stupid. Unbelievably stupid.

"Well," Dave began, "I can't fucking believe it's come to this. Rose told our parents we were going to Japan for summer courses, really it was to see the Mekakushi Dan…"

"…And we actually went to get murdered?" Jade finished.

"Exactly. God, what fucking happened to Konoha? He's not even Konoha anymore – unless we're in some shitty teen creepypasta and he has some hidden 'dark angel side', that's not Konoha trying to murder us."

"But we can think about that later! Now that we're safe, we should see if the others are too! Get your phone out, Dave. Text whoever comes to mind. If you keep misspelling, call them instead. Doesn't matter if we get the same person, just do it!" Jade pulled her phone from out of her pocket, silently thanking Nanna again for her birthday gift. She punched in the password, tapped the SMS icon. Dave had his phone pressed to his ear.

There was one word typed in for Kido before something shook. Shook more. When Jade looked down, she saw an irreversible dent in one of the coaster's main support beams. Two support beams. Three! The entire structure was wobbling now. Dave's phone had sprung out of his hands. And leaping up the ride, sliced and crumbling steel in his wake, was Kuroha. He ran after the gardener and the coolkid, onto the falling photo hut and off it, chasing the kids from island of metal to metal island. This time, on the way down, Jade was taking Dave's lead as they jumped.

The sky was less blue than falling gold, gold the coaster's colour (why didn't she see it earlier?), and the ground coming ever closer. Jade, eyes set on Dave's path for the last while, cut her focus. That metal rod, spinning like helicopter blades? It was going to crush them both. It was only another piece of debris before, but now? Now? Dave didn't have enough time to jump or to activate his eye ability.

Jade took her own lead again. Firmly she elbowed the coolkid onto a metal plate, and let the rod fall into her. It wasn't sharp. She wouldn't be impaled. But it had flown straight into her forehead, the thudding pain coursing through her body, dying the world pitch black. The jagged ground hurt even more. By then, there was nothing more to see. All was numb.

But before her ears gave themselves up too, the gardener heard something like sobbing for a bit. Then, complete silence. No more thoughts, either.

This was not how it should have been.


	5. Checkmate, part 2

Moments in the past, but not as many, Dave had realised a truth.

Jade Harley was a hero. Bro was a hero. The good-for-nothing named Dave Strider, left to leap alone from debris to ground, was not. There were no loopholes around it, no bargains able to be made against the fact. In spite of it though, Dave's body still carried itself from debris to debris in perfect 4/4 time. There was no use in flashstepping. Though the ability flared in his eyes, Dave forced it still. Jade and Bro's memories didn't need to be ruined any further. His arms and legs, numb with grief as they were, would just had to do. Dave rolled away from the last pieces of roller coaster, vaulting giant metal shards that burned at the touch. He sniffed. The air up on the photo hut was fresh, but down here? There were iron weights on it. He blinked.

Everywhere the coolkid looked, looked like death. The Mekakushi Dan was piled one over another, eyelids shut in sleep. It was uncanny, how everyone only looked to be napping. The diluted red drenching their clothes, where the iron smelled strongest, only meant otherwise. No one was going to get up. Dave kept walking. He thought again of the clones sprawled over back in the Haze, and how false they were. Seeing them didn't pierce the heart and make the limbs go numb, but this? This was death. If it wasn't so wrong to emote, Dave was sure that he'd be crumpled over by now.

But hang on a second. One, two, three, four – there was somebody missing. One more member of the Mekakushi Dan, not in the pile. Still alive? Dave thought he heard wailing as Jade was crushed. Where was Marry? Where did she go? A bit of hope caught fire in Dave's chest. There was still one more person to save. And just as there was one more person to save, a weapon was needed. Dave pulled a training sword from behind his back. _Carbon steel'll be fine,_ Dave thought, and let the crimson in his eyes out for the first time that day.

Otherworldly speed took the coolkid by the feet and dropped him off again, but he paid no attention to it. Look left, look right. No sight of the Medusa girl. A step forwards, one more, heading back. No sight of anyone at all. The hopeful bonfire in Dave's chest had collapsed on itself now, sick of the desperation that was fuelling it so well. Look left, look right. The pent-up energy his eye ability was eating for the past while was dying off, but Dave continued all the more. There was no way Marry could have gone far. Look left, look right. His eye ability was running on its last drops of power. Look left, look right. So Kuroha showed up. Look straight. A girl in a blue dress and white apron, kneeling on the cobblestone in the way the mourning did -

A sixteenth of a glance, and Dave was already by Marry's side, sword drawn. He readied his stance. He looked Kuroha straight in the eye. He lunged. Dave's training sword cut against the air, thudding against the android's palms. Not a single nick. What stuff was Konoha's body made of? Dave didn't ponder it longer. There was now a painful mixture of desperation and disbelief, hope and heat burning in his veins. It spread to his arms, with every slash of his training sword. It pooled in his legs, whenever Kuroha pushed him backwards. But as much as Dave duelled with the android before him, there was something off about the strife. It may have been the carbon steel, weak yet legal, not hitting as hard as he commanded. It could have been the flashstepping, responding to his coaxing but muffled nonetheless. But the one thing that pressed against Dave's mind as the answer, was that this fight was one-sided. He was the only one on the offense. Kuroha was holding back. But for what?

"You've finally noticed, haven't you?" Kuroha smiled. "You play the role of a valiant knight, but what kind of knight champions a useless cause?"

Dave didn't deem that worthy of answering.

"You try so hard to protect the queen, but it seems you are as blind as ever. Of everyone I've killed, your friends and hers, I've never laid a single finger on the Queen here. I'm merely her servant. And I plan to remain as such."

Still not answering.

"Ah, you tragic, tragic knight. I suppose the only fitting way for a warrior like you to go out is to - " Kuroha yanked Dave's sword from him, grabbing the flat end of the blade - "die at the hands of your opponent," he finished, taking the weapon by the hilt. With a jab, the android thrust it straight into the coolkid's chest and withdrew the sword. He stood back. Dave fell in battle.

This was not how it should have been.

* * *

Of course, this was not the true end to the story. Marry knew that. You, reader, and I, storyteller, know it better.

The sight of 8 snakes plus 4 coiling into her person, caused by premature death, had made the Medusa use her full power again. Gears turned, time ticked. Marry heard Kuroha beg her to hurry the reset, while her memories of the Mekakushi Dan begged her not to. But Kuroha won, like for the past couple routes.

One push, and the events that joined 9 and 4 kids into 13 unravelled. Back and back like a roll of film the timeline spun, eventually coming to the point where the death of a young man was made apparent to his friends. When the others entered and left the Heat Haze - events once called anomalies, now near-constants - there would be a different path taken.

This is not the end of the tragedy. Though this stage we're using is borrowed, and the players not ours by copyright nor creation, the play continues. The intermission's coming up, and after that the next Act. Will you stay to watch?

 **End of ACT 1**

* * *

 _AN: I don't know how many of you are out there, following Mekakustuck, but for those of you who are in for the ride until it ends? Thanks for being here. I was going to include a Homestuck style recap on what's happened, but it became a wall of text_ _! So, there is no recap. Sorry. I guess that instead I'll tell these things as fun facts:  
The official name of this_ _Act is_ Congrats, You're Inheriting Grief. _Yeah. I mean, Homestuck had Act names that were never really used and even I don't use them, so why not here?  
I_ _wrote_ Red on a Green Ghost _August 28th, this year (I got onto this website late). I_ _finished_ Colder than Science _, then started revising on October 22nd, also this year. After some math, I found out that ACT 1 was being written for **1 month, 24 days**! Most of that was spent writing character arcs, which was **1 month, 11 days. 111.**_ _  
Anyways, I know this audience is really small, but thank you for reading to the end of Colder_ than Science _and the first Act of Mekakustuck! Comments and criticism will be much appreciated_. _And even if you don't have either, just piping up in the reviews and saying you read this series/fic will be great. Know that we're not done yet! ~YellowTangerines_

( _Edit: messed up the numbers. ACT 1 was 1 month, 24 days while character arcs were the memenumber. Sorry!) ~YellowTangerines_


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